Outsourcing proposal upsets Oak Ridge parents, teaching assistants

Oak Ridge schools’ teaching assistants and paraprofessionals are reportedly upset by a proposed outsourcing of their jobs to a private company.

Donna Smith/The Oak Ridger

Oak Ridge schools’ teaching assistants and paraprofessionals are reportedly upset by a proposed outsourcing of their jobs to a private company.

The school administration is recommending the Oak Ridge Board of Education enter into a contract with PESG (Professional Educational Services Group) for the Nashville-based company to provide substitute teachers, teaching assistants and paraprofessionals for the Oak Ridge schools.

The School Board was originally scheduled to vote on the recommendation at its meeting tonight. However, the issue has been changed to an Item For Discussion.

The monthly School Board meeting is set for 6 tonight (Monday, Feb. 24) in the School Administration Building on New York Avenue.

Many of the school system’s current teaching assistants are expected to be at tonight’s meeting, according to Patti Hensley, who works as a full-time teaching assistant at Oak Ridge High School. She said the assistants will be wearing red shirts and letting School Board members know they are against the outsourcing of their jobs.

Hensley said she and other part-time and full-time teaching assistants met with Assistant Schools Superintendent Chris Marczak and other systemwide administrators on the PESG contract Thursday at Oak Ridge High School. She said Marczak couldn’t answer some of the teaching assistants’ questions at the Thursday meeting and some of the information they did receive was disturbing.

“He (Marczak) did not realize the insurance plan was the bronze care of the ‘Obamacare’ (Affordable Care Act) that has a $6,200 deductible,” Hensley said. “That would be half of our salary.”

The 59-year-old said she wouldn’t be able to afford the insurance and her husband wouldn’t be able to add her to his insurance plan because he’s retired and on Medicare.

“Why can I not be grandfathered in?” asked Hensley, who has worked for the school system for 16 years.

They (Board members) have several choices in it — to decide whether to outside all of it or part of it or none of it,” schools Human Resource Director Christine Lee said Friday, answering a phone call request The Oak Ridger made to Marczak. “From our perspective, I guess, we’re attempting to retain employees and avoid reductions in force.

“Of course, it becomes a very emotional issue for employees. Any change creates a lot of anxiety and apprehension. We’re trying to balance the needs of our employees and the needs of the students we serve and it’s kind of uncertain times.”

In regards to concerns on the cost of insurance, Lee said, “The Board has the ability to negotiate whatever kind of plan they want to negotiate. We haven’t even begun the negotiations on that. It’s kind of premature.”

Systemwide administrators gave the School Board information on the proposal to contract with PESG for substitute teachers, teaching assistants and paraprofessionals at the School Board’s Jan. 24 Board meeting. A couple of weeks later, according to Lee, the School Board was given information and four options for PESG to provide the teaching assistants and paraprofessionals.

At the Jan. 24 School Board meeting, Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers indicated the Affordable Care Act was behind the idea of contracting with PESG for substitute teachers. He said the school system uses a “pencil and paper” approach in hiring substitutes, but the new Act, known as “Obamacare” by many people, calls for more detailed tracking of hours worked and other information.

If the school system violates a part of the Act, such as employing a substitute teacher for more than 30 hours a week, he said, then the school system would have to provide the substitute with health care coverage. If the school system doesn’t provide the coverage, or commits other violations of the Act, he indicated, the school system would be fined $1.2 million per violation.

In regards to the teaching assistants and paraprofessionals, who are employees of the school system and are provided benefits, the options for contracting with PESG could save the school system $241,723 to $380,792 a year depending upon which option is chosen, according to information from Lee.

Those options include factors pertaining to insurance, 401K and state retirement.

According to the proposals, school administrators indicated that current assistants, substitutes and paraprofessionals would be eligible to continue working for the schools at the same pay they currently make and would receive additional training from PESG.

The plan has been likened to the school system’s decision several years ago to contract for school bus service.

Hensley said teaching assistants and students are currently collecting signatures on petitions asking the School Board to reject the proposal to contract with PESG.

Some parents are apparently also upset by the proposal. Parent Dargie Arwood talked to The Oak Ridger about her concern in a telephone call on Friday and shared a letter she sent to the School Board members.

She has three sons with intellectual and developmental disabilities who attend the city schools, in addition to also having grandchildren in the schools.

“I must say that I was devastated (and ANGRY) when I heard that you were even considering outsourcing our wonderful assistants to the teachers (as well as the substitutes), especially the ones in the CDC (comprehensive development class) classrooms that have been such a huge and amazing part of my children’s lives,” Arwood wrote in her letter to School Board members.

“These assistants love our children, they know them and serve them well. To think that for their dedication and faithfulness to the system that they will be unjustly robbed of their retirement, sick days, vacation days, and all other benefits is just wrong.

“To ask them to be rehired with no job security, forced to be ‘retrained’ (what better training could they possibly have than to be working beside these amazing teachers — for some nearly 20 years), fingerprinted, have a background check and with a pay cut is too sad to think about. It is degrading and insulting, and, I'm sure, makes them feel that their many years of services is at best unappreciated, but even worse that their time was not considered to be valued.

“Let me tell you, I have been in the classrooms, on field trips, in meetings and I know that these assistants are invaluable to our school system.”